


Life Is Rarely Easy when You’re Companion to a Queen

by AntagonizedPenguin



Series: How Best to Use a Sword [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Eventual Character Death, F/F, Family, Fingering, I promise I'm not here to kill lesbians, Intrigue, No spoilers but, Oral Sex, Politics, That would be profoundly shitty, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-03-21 03:20:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13732035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntagonizedPenguin/pseuds/AntagonizedPenguin
Summary: Cordelia has a wonderful wife, three healthy children, a position in the royal court and is companion to the queen of Kyaine.They say it's when everything is going well that you should be the most alert.





	1. Life Is Rarely Easy when You’re Companion to a Queen

**Author's Note:**

> One more short new story! I've been asked a few times over the last little while if I'd ever do a story about a lesbian couple, and when it came time for me to give us all a peek on what's happening in the south, I figured why not take the opportunity? 
> 
> So here it is: southern politics and lesbians, all in one. Hope you enjoy!

Cordelia had forgotten to take her hair out of its braid last night. 

It was hardly the end of the world, but it did mean more brushing than she cared to do. 

“I’m cutting all my hair off,” Cordelia announced as she walked out of the bedroom, tugging the cursed thing through her cursed hair. “I’m going to leave this world behind, become a nun in Saint Ophelia’s monastery and shave my head.” 

“That’s a myth,” Isabella said. She was a thick-bodied woman with beautiful bright eyes and the kindest smile in the world. Both those had started to get lines around the edges recently, but Cordelia hardly cared about that. The love of her life could look like whatever she wanted. She was still the most beautiful woman in Kyaine and beyond. “The nuns there don’t actually shave their heads. I suppose they can, but the idea that someone forces them to comes from anti-monastic propaganda during the time when the crown was trying to dissolve them and take their assets as public property.” She didn’t even look up from the expense report she was reading. 

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s disappointing. I’m still cutting off all my hair.”

“No, you aren’t, dear.”

“Of course I am. You can’t tell me what to do, love.” Cordelia sat down in the chair beside Isabella, smiling. A young maid came over and started to pour coffee. 

“I’m pretty sure I can. It was in the wedding vows.” Isabella smiled. “And that’s not the point. You’ve been saying you’d cut all your hair off since you were fifteen, and you haven’t done it yet.”

Cordelia scowled. “Today might be the day.”

“Is it?”

Another scowl. “No. Thank you, Melinda.”

The maid nodded, and smiled. “Would you like to break your fast, my lady?”

Used after twenty years to being ‘my lady,’ Cordelia nodded. “Yes, just some fruit, please.”

“And an egg,” Isabella added. 

“And an egg,” Cordelia repeated, dutifully. As Melinda retreated, Cordelia watched Isabella, still brushing her hair. Even after all this time, she never got tired of just watching her wife. “Where have you hidden my children this morning, love?”

“Christina has gone hawking with her friends.” Isabella gave Cordelia a look. “Among whom is little lord DiSheere.”

Cordelia sighed. Christina had never liked hawking until she’d liked Geoffrey DiSheere. “How did we end up with a daughter who likes boys?”

“Bad parenting,” Isabella said, shaking her head morosely. “It’s probably just a phase that she’ll grow out of.”

“We can only hope.” Cordelia liked Geoffrey, actually. He was a good kid, and his family weren’t assholes. 

“Your son…”

“Oh, no,” Cordelia interrupted, hand over her eyes for a second. “He’s my son today, is he?”

“Yes. Iago is with his tutor, and he asked me how babies were made today.” That was met with pointed silence.

Cordelia uncovered her eyes. “Well, that sounds like a matter of lineage and inheritance, so that’s your thing.”

“No, it sounds like a matter of mother-son bonding, and you’re his favourite.”

“That’s not true, love.”

Isabella smiled, patted Cordelia’s hand. “Today you are, because I had the baby talk with the first one.”

“We both did that!”

“I did all the work.”

Cordelia thought about it, decided that Isabella wasn’t wrong, and subsided a little, setting the brush down. “Fine. You owe me.”

“We’ll see. The baby’s upstairs with his nursemaid.”

“The baby’s two years old,” Cordelia reminded Isabella. “He’s not a baby.”

“Tell me that when he can carry on a conversation with me about how our revenue stream is being interrupted by fears of piracy in the west, and I’ll believe you.”

Cordelia leaned forward, playing with the hairbrush. “ _I_ can’t carry on a conversation about how our revenue stream is being interrupted by fears of piracy in the west, love.”

Isabella smiled, and she leaned forward as well, giving Cordelia a kiss. “You could if you wanted to. You’re a very intelligent woman.”

Cordelia knew that just fine. “My talents lie elsewhere, they always have. I used them to trick you into marrying me, didn’t I?” She laughed, kissed her wife again. 

“That you did, Lady Cordelia,” Isabella said with a grin, glancing over as Melinda brought the fruit and egg over for Cordelia to eat. “You managed to sneak your way into my house without me being any the wiser.”

“Maybe you’ll catch on some day, love, and kick me out on the street where I belong.” Cordelia sighed, started on the egg first. The coffee had cooled down enough to drink, which was nice. She glanced out the window at the rising sun. “It’s going to be nice today.”

“Lucky for our poor lovestruck daughter,” Isabella said, smiling. “Less so for us who will spend it all indoors.”

“The trials of being important, Lady Isabella. What are your plans for the day?”

“I expect I’ll spend most of it in meetings with the treasurer and then with someone named Fyrhawk.” Isabella shook her head. The Fyrhawk family had taken a lot more active control of Kyaine’s military in the last few months. “You?”

Cordelia shrugged. “I have a feeling a good amount of it will be spent meeting with people named Fyrhawk as well.” She wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the influence they had all of the sudden, especially with the queen’s brother-in-law missing, presumed dead and feared alive. “I think Francesca plans to take a tour of the city’s defences as well.”

A nod. “So, you will get to go outside.”

“I suppose I will,” Cordelia sighed, finishing the cursed egg and starting on the fruit. “Assuming I can cut my hair off in time.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, dear.” Isabella took up the brush and went about brushing Cordelia’s hair, which was what Cordelia had been angling for all the while. She finished eating her breakfast while her wife sorted out that problem, and by the time she was done she was both full and presentable. “There. You’re beautiful.”

“I wasn’t before?”

“Of course you were.” Isabella leaned down, kissed Cordelia upside-down. “But now you match the standards of beauty set forward by our exacting society.”

“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Cordelia stood, stretched, and kissed her wife again. “I should go. It would be unseemly for a companion to keep her lady waiting for long.”

“So it would be. Give Francesca my regards, dear.”

“I will, love.”

“And tell her I’d like something done about those pirates.”

“You and half the kingdom, Isabella.”

“Yes,” Isabella said, catching Cordelia’s hand as she went to leave. “But what’s the use of being married to the queen’s companion if I can’t use her to exert undue influence over the crown?”

“I think we have word for that…”

“Politics?”

“Treason?”

Isabella laughed. “Go to work, dear.”

“I’ll see you tonight, Isabella.”

“I love you, Cordelia.”

“I love you too.”

As Cordelia made her way to the castle she reflected, as she did most every morning, that her life had turned out just perfectly.


	2. A Companion Is a Friend, Counselor and Partner

“Help.”

Cordelia looked up at Francesca’s oldest daughter, who was draped dramatically on the small tea table in the corner of the room, having swept in just now and fallen into the chair. “What can I help you with, Dahlia?”

Anything was better than reading through Stephan Fyrhawk’s list of suggested military appointments in Hans’s absence. Given fears that Hans was a traitor, it seemed expedient to temporarily replace several of his key appointments, just in case. Cordelia wasn’t sure that replacing them with people tied to House Fyrhawk was any better, and the queen had tasked her with finding alternatives to suggest. 

“I’m having companion problems,” Dahlia complained.

“Companion problems of what variety?” As far as Cordelia knew, Dahlia and Andre weren’t arguing about anything currently. Though she hardly kept tabs on them. 

“The ‘he sleeps in my bed’ variety.” 

“Ah.” Cordelia put down her papers, came over to sit opposite Dahlia at the table. She didn’t move from her position on the table, so tea was out of the question, which was unfortunate. She had a nice blend that Isabella had found for her yesterday that she wanted a second cup of. “Do you want him to stop sleeping in your bed?”

“No, I want him to…” Dahlia sighed, lifted her head, pouting prettily. “You’re not going to tell mom about this, right?”

“Dahlia, I’m quite sure your mother already thinks you and Andre are having sex,” Cordelia assured her. “But if you’d rather I didn’t, then no. I won’t tell your mother about this.”

Dahlia gave a very dramatic sigh that was very reminiscent of Francesca at that age. She had her mother’s heavy eyes and strong cheekbones too. “I don’t think he wants to have sex.”

“And you do?”

A pout. “I don’t like boys much.”

“That’s not an answer to the question. “

“I’m a growing girl! I have hormones and urges and curiosities and he’s there and I feel like shit for asking him. I don’t want to take advantage of him.”

Cordelia smiled. “He’s a growing boy with hormones and urges and curiosities, Dahlia. Ask him. Tell him it’s okay for him to say no.”

Cordelia certainly hadn’t felt taken advantage of when Francesca had asked her at that age.

“But…”

“If he thinks he can’t say no to you, he needs to be disabused of that notion quickly,” Cordelia told her. “That’s the whole point of a companion.”

Dahlia sighed. “Okay. Thanks. What are you doing? Did I interrupt something important?”

Cordelia smiled. “I’m just trying to stop Stephan Fyrhawk from taking over the kingdom.”

“God, he’s a tool.” Dahlia sat up, smiling. “You should have let Franz marry his sister. Well, you should have let Felix marry his sister, but anyway.” 

Cordelia knew that. “Neither is an option right now. I don’t suppose you want to marry someone named Fyrhawk?”

Dahlia pulled a face, stood up. “I will run away and become a travelling vagabond if you try to make me.”

“That’s what I thought.” Cordelia smiled. “Don’t worry, that’s not on the table.”

A knock at the door had Cordelia looking up. “My lady,” a servant girl said quietly. “The queen requests your presence.” 

“Thank you,” Cordelia stood, kissed Dahlia on the cheek. “Talk to him. And remember that boys are stupid. Use small words.”

“Thank you,” Dahlia said, waving as Cordelia left her study. The servant girl hurried off after it was clear Cordelia was going where she was supposed to, leaving Cordelia to the short walk around the corner. 

Really, Francesca could have just shouted, but that would be unseemly. She went in without knocking, approaching the big heavy desk at the back of the queen’s study that made her companion look very regal. Queen Francesca DiGorre was a stately looking woman with a wide face and those same heavy eyes, hard out of habit. Her hair, recently cut short, made her look older than Cordelia thought she should look. But then, it was hardly Cordelia’s job to tell the queen how to wear her hair. Even if she’d never had taste for a day in her life. “You summoned me?”

“Certainly seems like something I’d do,” Francesca said, gesturing to a chair for Cordelia. “I don’t suppose you’ve solved my Fyrhawk problem.”

“I have not,” Cordelia admitted. “Yet. Give me a few more hours.”

Francesca nodded. “I’m writing a letter to Franz. What’s the not-alarming way to tell your son you’re sending troops to either avenge his uncle’s death or bring him in for treason?”

“Franz is a smart boy,” Cordelia told the queen. She liked Lord Hans. But at the same time, she could see him turning coat. He’d gone a little off after his companion Irwin had died two years back. “You don’t think he’ll realize that’s why you’re sending troops east without you having to say it?”

“I know. But I can do him the courtesy of saying it aloud. In writing. Whatever.” Francesca waved a hand. “Hans is his favourite uncle.” 

Cordelia nodded. She understood. “How is Dante holding up?” 

A thin smile. “He’s been better, but he understands. You know he was the first one to suggest aloud to me the possibility that Hans had turned traitor?” She looked sad, now. “I’d already wondered, but when even his own brother was willing to say it, that was what made me figure it was something to consider seriously.”

“Maybe he should write Franz as well,” Cordelia suggested. “It might help soften the blow.”

“That’s a good idea,” Francesca muttered, tapping her quill. “I’ll suggest it to him. God, but I wish I hadn’t sent my son away.”

“You didn’t send him away,” Cordelia said, not that she could fault Francesca for feeling that way. “He went to go get married. It’s what nobles do.”

“I know, I just…” Francesca shook her head with a shrug. 

“You’re going to see him at the wedding in a few months,” Cordelia said, reaching over and holding Francesca’s hand. “And we’re friends with Dolovai now. We’ll arrange state visits back and forth every year.”

“I don’t remember you being this optimistic before,” Francesca accused, holding Cordelia’s hand back. “What happened to you?”

“You got old and pessimistic, so I had to get old and cheerful.” Besides, Isabella made fun of her when she got pessimistic.

“No, you’re not allowed to call either of us old for at least twenty more years.”

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to be a grandmother in a little while,” she reminded her friend. 

“A very young grandmother, I have a toddler. And it’s not my fault that Felix couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

“With his wife,” Cordelia said gently. “To whom he is married. To a woman you like. And indeed, who you picked for him.”

“Yes, but they didn’t have to have sex right away,” Francesca sighed. “As enamoured as he was with Julius, I’d hoped that Felix would take his time figuring out how women worked.”

“They’re not hard to figure out,” Cordelia assured her.

“Men don’t generally think so.”

“Well, that’s why nobody should get married to men, if you ask me. You’re supposed to want your children to have heirs.”

“I do. But I’m not ready to be a grandmother yet.” Francesca sighed. “Whatever. The midwives think the baby’s likely to be a girl.”

“That’s exciting. I assume you’re interfering at every level of preparations?”

“I’ve drawn up a list of names I like,” Francesca confirmed. “I had a lot of girl names I never got to use. Honestly, three sons.” 

“You love your sons.”

“I do, I do.” Francesca smiled at Cordelia. “I’m sorry, I drew you away from work so you could listen to me bitch and complain again.”

“That’s my job,” Cordelia reminded her, standing up and kissing the queen’s hand. “Let’s have a cup of tea and then we’ll both go back to running the kingdom.”

Francesca snorted, came around the desk. “As if I actually do that.”

“I hear you have a little bit of influence over these things.”

“You hear wrong, and you’re supposed to be the one who’s good at hearing things. The queen has a very capable companion who does all the work.”

“Yes, well, part of the work involves making sure the queen doesn’t stress herself to death.” Cordelia smiled, and took Francesca out of her study. “Look, there’s a whole castle out here. When was the last time you saw it?”

“Oh, shut up,” Francesca laughed, that same laugh she’d had as a girl. “I get out plenty. We went to the lake the other day.”

“For work.”

“It was fun work.”

“If you say so,” Cordelia told her, shaking her head. Queen of Kyaine she might be, but Francesca was her friend first, and that was who Cordelia wanted to take care of.


	3. Companions Rarely Get Much Time off from Work

Just as she was thinking about lunch, a knock on Cordelia’s door had her looking up. 

She smiled at Isabella when she saw her standing there in the door, a tray in her hand. “What are you doing here?” Cordelia asked. Not that she was complaining. 

“I figured I’d join you for lunch,” Isabella said, carrying the tray into the room awkwardly—she was used to people carrying things for her—and setting it on Cordelia’s little table. “Come on, stop working for a few minutes.” 

Even after all the time they’d been married, Isabella never ceased to make Cordelia smile with the smallest gestures. “I’d love that,” she said, leaving the letter she was writing on her desk and heading over to join Isabella. “How has your day been?” she asked, giving her wife a kiss on the cheek before they sat down. 

Isabella uncovered the tray, revealing two bowls of thin soup, both of which had spilled a little, all over the tray. Cordelia smiled, used the tablecloth to clean off the spoon, and tasted the soup as Isabella frowned at the tray. “The servants make it look so easy.”

“The servants train to do it, love. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that their jobs are easy just because they make them look that way.” 

“I know, I know.” Isabella sighed, cleaned off her own spoon. She smiled at Cordelia. “How’s the soup?”

“It’s good,” Cordelia said, though there was too much onion in it. “Can I assume you made it yourself?” she teased.

“Of course. I told the cook what I wanted and when it came back, there it was!” Isabella said, laughing. “It was extremely arduous.” 

“I bet,” Cordelia’s wife had never had to cook in her life. Not that Cordelia had either, to be fair. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“My day?” Isabella asked, tasting the soup and making a face. “Not enough onion. But otherwise fine. I sat all morning with some merchants who are losing money to pirates, and then with the head of a mercenary band I’m considering hiring to deal with the problem since the crown isn’t going to.”

“The crown is going to,” Cordelia said, though she wasn’t sure with what or when. “We’re just in a tight spot at the moment.”

“I know,” Isabella sighed. “But my taxpayers don’t have time to wait for the Fyrhawks to jump off a bridge, so I’m doing something about it instead. Speaking of which, have you shown them a bridge to jump off yet?”

“I’m building one,” Cordelia confirmed, nodding. “I’m writing to the people Francesca and I have chosen to fill the positions Lord Stephan was trying to stack with his cronies.”

“It’s just you and I here, dear,” Isabella reminded her, patting Cordelia’s hand. “You don’t have to pretend Francesca helped, and you don’t have to pretend you care about baby Fyrhawk’s title.”

Cordelia hooted a laugh, shaking her head. “Thank God for that,” she said. “I think it’s going to be fine, honestly. We’re getting a handle on the situation.” 

“That’s what people always say before the situation turns into a bird and flies away,” Isabella reminded her, eyebrows raised. “You’re the one who reads stories to Iago, you should know this.”

“And you should know that Iago reads stories to me now,” Cordelia reminded Isabella. She was very proud of that. “And he changes them when he doesn’t like the ending.” 

“Someone should teach him about the integrity of literature.” Isabella made a face.

“I think someone should teach him that sometimes when you don’t like something, it’s possible to change it,” Cordelia countered. “And I think the ending of a story is one of those things.”

“Well…”

A knock on the open door interrupted them, and Cordelia looked up, blinked. “Lord Stephan.”

Baby Stephan Fyrhawk wasn’t a baby, he was a young man of about Christina’s age, tall and pointed in the way that people from the far south were. Cordelia hated to describe him or any of his family as ‘hawkish’ because it was so obvious, but it also wasn’t untrue of him. When his uncle Dalton and Dalton’s daughter Danica had died in the same accident a few months back, the leadership of his family had suddenly passed to him. 

And he’d been a pain in Cordelia’s ass ever since. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, Lady Cordelia, Lady Isabella,” Stephan said as he came into the room uninvited, smiling obsequiously. Cordelia had a feeling he wasn’t sorry. “I was hoping to speak with the queen, but she’s not in.”

Francesca was in, but she’d probably told her servants not to admit Stephan. “That’s why you shouldn’t drop by unannounced, Lord Stephan, which we’ve told you. I can pass her a message when I see her later today, if you like.” 

Stephan made a face that he probably thought he concealed. “Very well,” he said, sighing audibly. “Please tell her I’d like to speak with her at her convenience.” 

“About what?” Cordelia asked, keeping the impatience out of her tone. 

“I’ll speak with the queen…”

“You’ll speak with the queen much sooner if she knows why she’s speaking with you,” Cordelia told him. “She’s very busy, I’m sure she’d want to know why it’s important.”

Another dramatic sigh. “Very well. Tell her I wish to discuss the future of our families.”

“Your families. Both of them?” Cordelia asked, frowning. Her mind ran a quick circuit before she came at the answer. “You’re looking for a marriage alliance.”

Stephan blinked, nodding his head. “Yes,” he said, sounding surprised. “Between my sister Sophia and princess Dahlia. I think that given the current political climate, it’s in all of our best interests for our two families to unite.”

Cordelia wanted to throw the too-oniony soup at him, but she just shook her head. “The queen isn’t going to go for that, Lord Stephan, I’ll tell you that now.” Not to mention that Dahlia would have a fit.

Stephan gave them a thin smile. “Then convincing her will be my task, won’t it? You’ll deliver the message? I expect the queen will want to see me shortly.”

“Yes,” Cordelia nodded now. “I expect she will. You can expect to hear from her soon, no doubt.”

“Thank you, Lady Cordelia. I apologize for interrupting you ladies,” he said, bowing his head a little and backing out of the room. 

Cordelia waited until he was gone to sigh even more dramatically than he had. “I’ll need to finish that bridge very soon,” she grumbled, appetite gone. “I was having such a good day.” 

“What will Francesca do?” Isabella asked, leaning across the table and taking Cordelia’s hand. 

“I don’t know,” Cordelia sighed. “Most likely she’ll find someone else for Sophia to marry—or someone else for Dahlia to marry. She has time, Dahlia is a few years too young to marry anyway, and so is Sophia Fyrhawk.” 

“It’s not a good sign, though.”

“No,” Cordelia agreed. “It’s an attempt to retaliate for not picking his appointments for military positions. Dammit. I have to go talk to Francesca.” 

“Of course.” Isabella stood, smiling. “I’ll get out of your hair. See you this evening?”

“Yes, this evening.” Cordelia pulled Isabella into a hug, and kissed her as well. “Thank you for bringing lunch. I love you.”

“I love you too, dear.” Isabella returned the kiss, then, with a smile, pulled away. “Look at you, running the kingdom.”

“Someone has to, and God knows I’m not going to let it be Stephan Fyrhawk,” Cordelia muttered, leaving the room with Isabella before they parted ways in the hall. “Have a good day.”

“You too, Cordelia.”

Cordelia did not, but she appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.


	4. There Really Are Just Enough Hours in the Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's a given that in one of my stories, there is going to be sex eventually. That does not change just because I'm writing about two ladies. This is my first ever attempt at lesbian sex, but I think it came out okay. I made some of my friends to whom the content is relevant read it to confirm that it was good, but you guys will be the real test.

“Why are the days so long?” Cordelia asked as she and Isabella undressed for bed. 

“I think it had something to do with angels. Most things did back in the day when God was deciding all these things.”

Cordelia sighed, unbraiding her hair. She watched Isabella take off her jewellery, shaking her head. “Well, I think it’s time to bring a few of those decisions up for review. We’ve tried it, it didn’t work out, angels don’t have to sleep and we do, and the day should be shorter so we can do more of it.” 

There was also, Cordelia thought, something to the fact that the angels who’d helped with creation had mostly become demons afterwards, so maybe they’d been pulling one over on everyone with the whole time thing. 

“I’ll let her know next time I see her,” Isabella sighed.

Cordelia nodded. “Thanks, love. Goodness knows she’s not answering me lately.”

In her mirror, Isabella raised an eyebrow. “She must have seen your loving wife, beautiful family, your position in royal court and your unparalleled beauty and decided she’d given you enough.” 

Laughing, Cordelia pulled the rest her braid out and gratefully sat down on the bed, reaching behind herself to unlace her dress. “I suppose that’s fair. I do have it pretty good, don’t I?”

“Not as good as I do,” Isabella said, finishing with her jewellery and sitting on her side of the bed, also starting on her clothes. “I mean, you have the misfortune of being married to me, but I get to be married to you.”

“That _is_ true,” Cordelia agreed, nodding. Then, when her lace caught, she scowled. “Speaking of misfortune, can you come take my dress off for me?”

Isabella laughed. “You know, you used to be a lot more romantic than that.”

Cordelia snorted. “It’s hard to be sexy when you’re stuck in your clothes.”

“Hm,” Isabella got out of her dress, crossed the bed just in her smallclothes, hand coming up to Cordelia’s back. “You managed to get the laces in a knot.”

“You don’t say.” 

“Hold still.”

Cordelia did, and after a moment or so Isabella loosened the problem, and the dress started to slide down Cordelia’s shoulders as the laces were undone. “There we go.”

“Thank you.”

“Hm,” Isabella said again, unlacing farther and pushing the dress down all the way, pooling it around Isabella’s waist. “Now that’s better,” she muttered, kissing Cordelia’s neck.

Cordelia tilted her head, closing her eyes as she felt the kiss. “See, I hardly need grand romantic gestures to seduce you.”

“Apparently not,” Isabella agreed, reaching down and untying Cordelia’s smallclothes, freeing her breasts as well. Once they’d been slid off, Isabella wrapped her arms around Cordelia, cupping her breasts as she kissed Cordelia’s neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” 

“Glad we’re still on the same page,” Isabella said, one hand moving lower, sliding down Cordelia’s belly. 

“Were you worried?” Cordelia asked, spreading her legs a little as Isabella’s hand slipped into her smallclothes, searching. 

She didn’t search long, fingers massaging Cordelia’s vulva slowly, firmly, making circles and making Cordelia shiver. “No,” Isabella said, slipping one of those fingers inside. 

Cordelia shut her eyes, tilting her head back as she let Isabella have her way, prodding around, slowly massaging the labia before slipping into the entrance, up into Cordelia, who raised her voice a little as Isabella added her second finger, breath hot on her neck. Cordelia felt herself starting to leak into her smallclothes, moving her hips against her wife’s hand. “Bella…”

Isabella penetrated her farther, making Cordelia gasp as shocks of pleasure ran up her spine, the ball of Isabella’s thumb massaging Cordelia’s clitoris as well, tides of pleasure coursing through Cordelia from the stimulation. She slid out, then back in, and kept going, rocking back and forth with Cordelia on the edge of the bed. Their breathing was synched, and when Cordelia’s started to pick up as she got closer and closer, Isabella pulled her fingers out, just brushing them over Cordelia’s clitoris where her thumb had been and bringing Cordelia to climax on a wave that she rode, gasping out her wife’s name, Isabella holding her steady as she did. 

When it faded, Cordelia leaned against Isabella, smiling and relaxed. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Isabella said, removing her hand and wiping it on Cordelia’s dress. “Come on, get out of this.”

Cordelia nodded, and raised her hips so Isabella could push her smallclothes and the dress to the floor, and then Cordelia turned around, hands on Isabella’s hips. “Now you’re far too dressed, love.” 

“Am I?” Isabella asked, smiling at Cordelia in that way that always melted Cordelia’s heart. “Shall we fix that?”

“Allow me.” Cordelia slid Isabella’s smallclothes down, pushed her wife back onto the mattress to disentangle them from her knees and toss them away. And then, since she was down there, Cordelia spread Isabella’s legs at the knee, exposing Isabella to her, and ran a hand down Isabella’s groin, enjoying the light gasp she got in exchange. “I really am blessed with the most beautiful wife in the world,” she purred, leaning down and giving Isabella a kiss, then another, then another.

Isabella spread her legs farther for Cordelia as she slipped her tongue inside, using it to do what Isabella’s fingers had been doing for her earlier. Not, perhaps, with as much reach, but Isabella made up for it by exploring more broadly, alternating between poking into Isabella’s entrance and bathing the clitoris in attention. 

Isabella tended to be louder than Cordelia, and so Cordelia didn’t need to see her face or match her breathing to know when she got closer, she started to make little moans, which got louder and closer together. When she let out her loudest one, Isabella arched her back and all her muscles clenched around Cordelia. Cordelia drew back, kissing the interior of her wife’s thigh, and when Isabella collapsed onto her back again, Cordelia climbed up to lay beside her.

“Maybe we’re both blessed,” Isabella mused, as Cordelia helped her out of the top of her smallclothes, leaving her naked. 

“Maybe.” Cordelia kissed Isabella’s cheek. She lay down, pulling the blanket over them, resting her head on Isabella’s shoulder. “I guess that means God isn’t going to listen to either of us about the length of days thing.”

“I guess not,” Isabella agreed. “We’ll just have to make up for it by using the days to their best extent.”

“Hm,” Cordelia said, closing her eyes and snuggling up close. “I think we already are.”


	5. Problems Tend to Mount if You Don’t Deal with Them in Good Time

“Please do make sure nobody kills my son.”

“I swear I shall, my queen,” Ronaldo Harrow intoned, bowing, his robe fluttering in the wind. He was Francesca’s court wizard, and he always dressed like it for formal occasions. Behind him, his dour apprentice Ignatius and their twitchy attendant whose name Cordelia didn’t know were wearing normal people clothes. “And I shall send you news about the coalition.”

“Do that.” Francesca nodded. Cordelia didn’t like the idea of a coalition of magic practitioners, but there was one forming up north, to deal with the whole Sorcerer King business in the Fury Plateau. Since that was potentially related to Hans’s disappearance, she did approve of the attention, if not the method. 

“You have my word, my queen.” Ronaldo bowed again, before smiling. “We’re off.”

“Fare well, Ronaldo.” 

With a nod, Ronaldo turned, gesturing to Ignatius and the attendant. They mounted their horses and struck off for the north, following the road. 

Francesca turned away once they were a good distance off, gesturing for her retinue to turn around and head back for the city. 

“I don’t like you sending him away,” Cordelia told her again as they too mounted horses. “He’s useful here.”

“I agree. But if the world’s magic practitioners are going to sit up in the northern academy and conspire something, I want someone I trust in on the conversation,” Francesca told Cordelia again. “I won’t have the north deciding things that impact us without some input from my court.”

“Technically the academy isn’t a northern institution,” Cordelia reminded her. “All of our mages are trained there too.”

“Yes, which is why I have a court wizard instead of a court mage. That academy hasn’t had a southern archmage in how long? You know as well as I do that being situated in the north means that it’s a northern institution.”

Cordelia sighed. It wasn’t like Francesca was wrong. “Maybe they’ll make my aunt the High Presbyter and we’ll be allowed to have the Catechism for a while.”

“Do you think the angels are going to elect Christina?”

Isabella snorted. “No. Though it wouldn’t kill them to put a woman in the job for once.”

“Rather curious that in the country where God is a man, so is her head priest, isn’t it?” Francesca asked, with a bit of a laugh. 

“Maybe we ought to have our own church.”

“We tried that once. There was a war.”

“There were two, actually,” Cordelia said, smiling as they passed through the gates of the city. “Anyway, I don’t like having your best wizard away when we’re up to our necks in Fyrhawks.”

“Oh, they’re hardly at waist level,” Francesca said, though Cordelia knew she was worried about it too. 

“Not if they have allies in the city.”

“Do they?”

“Yes,” Cordelia said. “Lord Stephan met with Lady Margery and Lord Ulrich in the last two days.”

“He’s looking to get married,” Francesca mused. Both Margery DiCosst and Ulrich Ederbyne had unmarried daughters who were old enough for a husband, and both of them were major houses. 

“Obviously he was unhappy with your answer to his proposal for Sophia and Dahlia.” Cordelia was sad she’d missed that meeting, she was sure that Francesca’s reaction had been hilarious. 

“He’s bloody lucky I didn’t boot his hide out a window at the suggestion,” Francesca muttered darkly. “And yes, I know it’s politically advantageous. But I don’t care. Nobody named Fyrhawk is marrying one of my children.”

“Of course they’re not.”

“Not while they’re slowly trying to gain a stranglehold on my military.”

“I know.”

“It’s a bad idea, Cordelia.”

“I’m not disagreeing, Francesca.” Nobody except for Stephan Fyrhawk thought it was a good idea for their families to be married together. But then, that was because it wasn’t a good idea for anyone except his family. 

“No,” Francesca said, a little awkward. “I suppose you’re not.” 

Cordelia smiled, and the two of them rode the rest of the way in silence. Hawk’s Roost bustled with activity, its winding streets full of people and goods. Food was being sold back and forth in preparation for a festival in a few days. There was a bit of a chill in the air with the autumn. 

Just inside the gates to the circular castle, they were met by a young man who resembled Francesca heavily, especially in his stockier build. Felix was her heir, and he bowed as his mother got off her horse. “Mother.”

“Son.”

“There’s been another attack.”

“On what, dear?” Francesca asked, handing off her reins. Cordelia did the same, and followed them into the courtyard. 

“A patrol of naval ships, three of them. Only one got away, and it barely made it to Bright Harbour.”

Francesca let out a loud sigh. “Right. The other pressing problem. I’d almost managed to forget about that for twenty entire minutes.”

“I wouldn’t have let it go for much longer,” Cordelia assured her. “You need to do something about them.”

“Send me,” Felix urged, as he had several times before. “I’ll take some troops, rally some ships, and we’ll go after them.”

“Felix…”

“Mother.”

“You have a baby on the way.”

“And Maria thinks I should go too. People are dying.”

“You will regret missing your daughter’s birth.” 

Felix sighed. “I know. But I’ll regret not doing anything about this too.”

They entered into the castle proper, and Francesca nodded. “Convene my advisors, would you, Cordelia? Felix is right. This is at least a problem we can fix. It’s high time we did.”

“Agreed,” Cordelia said. “And with that, you will once again be invited to dinner at our house.”

“Was I uninvited?”

“Isabella is less than pleased at the time this decision has taken.”

“Fair enough,” Francesca said with a smile. “I will have to send her an appropriate gift as an apology.” 

“A note telling her there are no more pirates interfering with her shipping lanes would suffice,” Cordelia teased.

“I was thinking a nice bottle of wine, but maybe I’ll attach the note to the bottle.”

“She wouldn’t say no to the wine.” Cordelia smiled. “I’ll go convene the council.”

“Thank you.” Francesca let out a tired sigh. “The Sorcerer King and my brother in the east, a magic coalition up north and pirates in my ocean. Not to mention the Fyrhawks in my bloody capital. What the hell is the world coming to?”

“It’s nothing you can’t handle,” Cordelia promised her queen.

“It’s nothing I _can_ handle,” she corrected. “But it’s nothing that you and I together can’t handle. Like always.”

Cordelia smiled, squeezing Francesca’s hand briefly. “I’ll go convene the council. See you shortly, my queen.”

“At which time we shall save the world,” Francesca muttered, as they parted.

Cordelia didn’t think they were going to do anything so grandiose, but together they could probably make it better than it was now, at least.


	6. Experience Makes Victory Easier, As Long As You’re All Playing the Same Game

“I don’t believe,” Stephan Fyrhawk said, leaning forward on his elbows as he did, “that removing the army from Hawk’s Roost at this time is a good idea, my queen.”

“I appreciate and share your concerns, Lord Stephan,” Francesca said, holding a hand up as she spoke. She thought it was a regal gesture, Cordelia knew, though Cordelia thought it was silly. Fortunately, most people seemed to agree with Francesca on this one. “And I’m not comfortable with the army being away either when we don’t know where Hans is. But this isn’t a time when our comfort should be what matters. The security of our people is at stake.”

“That security will be in question, my queen, by taking the capital’s protection away. At least allow us to muster troops from the noble houses to defend the capital in the standing army’s stead,” Lord Stephan pleaded.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have a point, Cordelia thought, from her position at the wall. At meetings of the queen’s council, companions often stood at the back, if only because sitting so many at the table was inconvenient at best. Stephan Fyrhawk had a decent point, and she had to stop herself dismissing it out of hand just because she didn’t like him. 

“From whom do you believe the capital is under threat, Lord Stephan?” Isabella asked, arms crossed. And there, Cordelia thought, was a rational answer that wasn’t based on personal dislike. She’d known she could trust her wife to find one. “Even if we’re assuming the worst-case scenario with Hans, he’s nowhere near the capital and if he moves towards us, we’d know as soon as he crosses the River Nyl. That gives us time to muster troops from nearby areas and recall what we’ve sent west.” 

“As military advisor, I’m not confident they can get back in time,” Stephan insisted. “Nor am I confident the mustered troops would be enough to keep Hans at bay for any length of time.”

“Lord Hans doesn’t have an army,” Lord Gerhard DiSheere said, shaking his head. “From where do you imagine he’s summoned one, Stephan?”

“The Fury Plateau? The north? I don’t know.” Stephan looked frustrated. “What I’m saying is, _we don’t know_. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave the city undefended when we don’t know.” Behind him, his companion Neville was looking increasingly worried. Cordelia had a feeling she knew why. He was concerned about what might happen if Stephan lost his temper. 

“But we do know that the west coast is at war with some psychopath whose armada is growing by the day,” Isabella pressed. “I believe we have to prioritize the danger we know exists over the one we fear exists.”

“A pirate armada isn’t a danger to the capital, Lady Isabella.” That wasn’t Lord Stephan, and Cordelia blinked, not having expected Margery DiCosst to come to his aid in public. So she hadn’t been wrong about him having allies. 

“An army that doesn’t exist isn’t a danger to anyone, Lady Margery,” Isabella shot back. “And if you think the seizing of shipping lanes and the destruction of merchant ships isn’t a threat to the capital, then I have very bad news for you about how supply chains work.”

Margery was a slight woman with a powerful glare, which she turned on Isabella. “I know full well the value of shipping lanes and merchant ships,” she said briskly. “But I also know that Hawk’s Roost isn’t going to fall into the lake without them.”

“You might also wish to remember,” Gerhard DiSheere said, nodding slowly, “that Hawk’s Roost isn’t the only part of the kingdom that matters. There are many other places where our citizens live, and some of them are on the west coast.”

“Dolovai has just as much at stake in this as we do,” Ulrich Ederbyne said, shifting gruffly, like a dog with a burr on his flank. “I don’t believe it’s appropriate for us to commit such force unless we have a promise from Gerard ven Sancte that he will be doing the same.”

And how, Cordelia wondered, glancing at Francesca, had Stephan managed to get both him and Margery to agree with him? Surely he hadn’t managed to promise a marriage alliance with both of them. 

It could be that they genuinely believed he was right, but Cordelia doubted that.

“We will obtain such a promise,” Francesca said. “In the meantime, it does not hurt us to set a positive precedent.” 

“Precedents don’t win wars,” Stephan insisted. “Soldiers do, and we won’t have any here if we send them off west.”

“West is where the war is, Lord Stephan,” Isabella said, patiently. “The pirates are supposed to have a land base somewhere near the Flaming Plains.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then you’re aware that land forces are needed to assail it.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that too. What I’m saying is…”

“We hear what you’re saying, Stephan,” Gerhard interrupted. “We don’t agree with your assessment of the situation.”

“ _I’m_ the queen’s military advisor. I’m trying to give military advice.” He was getting hotter, Cordelia saw, a little red moving up his neck. 

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid having to leave the capital?” Gerhard asked kindly. 

“Don’t speak to me that way!” Stephan shouted, rage on his face now. Behind him, Neville winced. “I’m not a child. I’m an adult, I’m the lord of House Fyrhawk, I’m member of this council and I’m telling you that this is a mistake, and you can’t simply dismiss me as a misbehaving child because you don’t like what I have to say, you patronizing old fool!”

A silence fell over the table for a moment, and Cordelia nearly did a happy dance. Having Stephan blow up was just what they needed. It made him look just like the child he claimed not to be, and took away some of his credibility. 

It wasn’t that his comments didn’t have merit. But Gerhard was right. He didn’t want to leave the capital, and that was the real reason for his objection. 

Lord Ulrich cleared his throat, looking nervously at Stephan. “There is something to be said for the fact that this plan takes Lord Stephan out of the capital,” he said evenly. “The crown might find more assent to the plan were it not a transparent attempt to weaken Lord Stephan’s position in Hawk’s Roost.”

“Lord Stephan’s position in Hawk’s Roost is not in question,” Francesca said, just as evenly. There was a chill in the room now. “He is the military advisor. It would be poor decision making not to send him to oversee a major military operation. My son wanted to go, but I think we can all agree that he shouldn’t miss the birth of his first child if that can be avoided, no?” She looked right at Margery DiCosst, who was aunt to Felix’s wife Maria. 

There was a brief staring contest that had Cordelia glad nobody was looking at her. Well, nobody but the other companions, but she just looked right back. 

“Perhaps,” Lady Margery said, “we should call a brief recess, and…”

“No,” Lord Stephan held up his hand. “I would like to apologize for my outburst just now. It was inappropriate, and I allowed my…disagreement with this course of action to become personal. It won’t happen again.” He was still angry, Cordelia saw. “Ultimately, of course, I bow to the authority of the crown. Having registered my disagreement, I will carry out my queen’s command, regardless of my personal opinion.”

That, Cordelia thought, was much more mature than she’d expected of him. It kind of soured the whole outburst. Though he still looked like he’d rather be eating insects than saying what he was. 

Francesca nodded, another regal gesture that was a lot less silly looking. “I always appreciate dissenting opinions, Lord Stephan. And I appreciate your honesty, and your loyalty. I do believe this to be the best course of action. If you have a counterproposal for how to deal with the piracy issue, I am happy to hear it. Otherwise, we will move forward with the current plan.”

Stephan Fyrhawk nodded, trying and failing not to look sullen. Behind him, Neville still looked worried, which Cordelia thought was strange.

The rest of the council meeting was quiet, and Cordelia spent it wondering whether that was a good thing.


	7. You Can’t Force a Day to be Good, but You Sure Can Try

Cordelia woke up in a good mood. 

The autumn sun was shining through a gap in the curtains, not glaringly bright like it would have been two months ago, slicing across Isabella, who was stirring beside her. The room was a pleasant temperature. Stephan Fyrhawk had left Hawk’s Roost yesterday. And she’d remembered to take her braid out last night. There was no reason not to be in a good mood, and plenty of reasons to be. 

The prime reason was definitely that second thing. Isabella looked radiant even just waking up, her hair in her face and her cheek creased from the pillow. Normally she was up before Cordelia by a good distance, so Cordelia rarely got the pleasure of watching her rise. 

Isabella stretched a little, arching her back under the blanket, and she opened her eyes, blinking blearily at Cordelia. “Watching me sleep?”

“Watching you wake up,” Cordelia said, reaching out to brush hair out of her wife’s face. “You’re awfully pretty, Lady Isabella.”

“Oh,” Isabella yawned. “It’s going to be one of those days, is it?”

“One of what days?”

“One of those days where you wake up in a good mood,” Isabella complained. “Those are always a trial.”

“What’s wrong with me being in a good mood?”

“Nothing at all, dear. It’s just that normally, you wake up annoyed. And so when you wake up happy, it upsets the natural order of creation, and I spend the whole day waiting for something to go wrong to make up for it.”

“Hey,” Cordelia said, giving Isabella’s hair a tug. 

“Plus you’re very chipper and excited, and then you get annoyed later when something negative happens. When you wake up annoyed, something good happens and it makes you smile.” Isabella continued, smiling up at Cordelia.

“Well,” Cordelia leaned down, kissed Isabella’s forehead. It wasn’t like Isabella was wrong, necessarily. “This isn’t going to be one of those days. It’s going to be a good day, where only good things will happen.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. I’ve decided.”

“Ah,” Isabella got up on an elbow, kissing Cordelia’s cheek. “Good things such as what?”

She was stunning in that moment that Cordelia couldn’t help but kiss her again, on the mouth, and more slowly. “How about good things like that?”

“Hmm…” Isabella didn’t sound convinced. “Perhaps another demonstration. I don’t think I quite got the meaning the first time.”

“Of course, Lady Isabella,” Cordelia said, smiling. She kissed Isabella again, moving this time, on top of her wife, resting her body on top of Isabella’s with her right leg between Isabella’s thighs. “Is that clearer?”

“Ah, yes, I think I see what you’re getting at now,” Isabella purred, hand ghosting down Isabella’s side, circling around the inside of her thigh, settling between her legs. Cordelia’s hand joined her, flitting over Isabella’s belly before sliding downwards. 

“Told you.” Cordelia said it between kisses, and as she did, she slipped her fingers into the wetness between Isabella’s legs. “Good things only.”

“It’s a day plan I can get behind. Or under.” Isabella followed suit, slipping two fingers inside Cordelia, Cordelia’s clitoris rubbing against her palm. 

Cordelia didn’t have much of a comeback for that, so she just pushed in a little farther, using her thumb for the same thing Isabella’s palm was doing to her. She gasped as Isabella kissed her back harder, biting Cordelia’s lower lip in the process, before letting to and looking at her, eyes full of challenge. 

Cordelia rose to the challenge, biting back—gently—but giving it up in exchange for a deep, conquering kiss, pressing Isabella back down against the mattress, the both of them thrusting their hips back and forth, waves of ecstasy building in Cordelia as she sped up, her kisses, her hand, her hips, her heart, her everything. 

Isabella moaned underneath her, filling Cordelia’s mouth with her song as she clenched around Cordelia’s fingers, spasming into the bed, breath coming in short spurts. With a hard thrust of her hips into Isabella’s rigid hand, Cordelia followed her into the ocean, riding out the waves of heat and love as they came over her, holding onto her light and thanking God for everything she had as everything she had was given over to pleasure.

The line of sunlight had moved by the time Cordelia had the energy to move her head, to look down at Isabella’s radiant face. She carefully removed her hand, wiping it on the blankets, and kissed her one more time. “So anyway,” she said, touching her forehead to Isabella’s. “I think it’s going to be a good day. Where only good things happen.”

“You do make a compelling argument, dear,” Isabella said, wrapping her arms around Cordelia. “Better still if we just don’t get out of bed.”

“You won’t get any disagreement from me on that one.”

A minute passed. Cordelia didn’t move. Isabella looked up at her. “We do actually have to get out of bed, though.”

“Hm,” Cordelia said, shaking her head. “You know, they say disagreements are the key to a healthy marriage.”

“Get off.”

“I think we already did that.”

Isabella laughed. “This is what I mean. You wake up happy, and you get into strange moods.”

“And yet you love me anyway.” Cordelia grinned.

“Yes, I do. Now get off me before I push you out of the bed.”

Snickering, Cordelia did, stretching as she climbed out of bed. “I love you too, Isabella.” She crossed over to the window, pulled back the curtains and let the sunlight into the room more fully, shielding her eyes a little from it. 

Isabella came up behind her, wrapped an arm around Cordelia’s middle. “I think you were right,” she said, as they looked out the window at the rising sun together. “It’s going to be a good day.”

Cordelia agreed, if only because she intended to make sure it stayed that way.


	8. A Companion’s Duties Must Sometimes Come Before Her Family

“I don’t like Julian,” Iago declared, rolling onto his back and making his toy horse fly through the air. “I want a different companion.”

Cordelia smiled at her son. At eight years old, she was sure his opinion on that wouldn’t change three times before he woke up tomorrow. That never happened at his age. “And what’s led you to this life-changing decision, son?” she asked, steadying baby Carlos in her lap so he didn’t topple over. He was pretty determined to wave his way into a concussion. 

Iago harrumphed. “He told me I look like a dog.”

Across the room, Christina laughed into her book. “You do look like a dog, Iggy.”

“Hey!” Iago got a little hot in the face. “I want a new sister too.”

“Don’t pick on your brother,” Isabella told Christina, sending Cordelia the smallest of smiles over Iago’s head. 

“It’s not picking on him if it’s true.”

“At least I don’t look like a bird!”

Christina raised an affronted eyebrow, started to say something, then remembered she was fifteen and above name-calling and just looked back down at her book. “Woof,” she said.

Iago snorted angrily at her. “Anyway,” he said to Cordelia and Isabella. “I don’t like Julian. He said I looked like a dog and said he hated living here.”

“Do you think,” Cordelia said gently, “that maybe he just misses his parents?”

Cordelia remembered being that age and even if she’d agreed to become Francesca’s companion, agreeing to it and doing it were two totally different things. She’d have to arrange for Julian to spend more time with his family if he was feeling that way. She didn’t want him to feel like they’d kidnapped him or something. 

“I…didn’t think of that,” Iago admitted, looking worried. “Do you think he’s just sad?”

“He might be. And you should remember that he’s not just your companion,” Cordelia told him. “You’re his too. If he’s feeling sad, you should try to cheer him up.”

“I…guess.” Iago frowned. “Okay. But I’m still mad at him.”

“Well…” Cordelia looked up as bells started ringing somewhere in the city. It was too early for devotional bells, and they spread, monotonous, no charm to them at all. Soon they were ringing everywhere. 

“Are those the alarm bells?” Christina asked, as Isabella stood. 

“I think so,” Cordelia told her, standing as well, moving Carlos to her hip. 

“What’s happening?” Iago asked, clutching his toy horse.

“I don’t know,” Cordelia told him, coming over and taking his hand. “But if we go up to the balcony, we might be able to see.” From the balcony in Cordelia and Isabella’s bedroom, they could just see over the eastern wall of the city thanks to the hill they were on. 

“Don’t you need to go to the castle, mom?” Christina looked worried, fiddling with the sleeve of her dress.

“Yes. But there’s nothing I can do now that I can’t do in fifteen minutes. Let’s go to the balcony and see if we can see anything.”

So Cordelia and Isabella led the children upstairs, to their bedroom. Along the way, Isabella sent Cordelia worried looks, and Cordelia smiled at her. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said. 

“They’re still ringing the bells, though,” Iago reminded her. 

That they were, and Cordelia really wished they wouldn’t. 

In their bedroom, Isabella led them across to the balcony. “We may not see anything if it’s not to the east,” she said as she pushed open the glass doors and led them outside.

But they saw something to the east after all. “Those are soldiers,” Christina said immediately, eyes wide. “Marching on the capital.”

“Whose soldiers?” Cordelia whispered, going cold. With the Fyrhawks gone, there was little to defend the capital. The gates were firmly shut and would stay that way, but if the bells were ringing, it couldn’t be friendly soldiers. Or at least they hadn’t identified themselves as friendly. 

“Are they going to attack us?” Iago asked, hiding in Cordelia’s skirt a little. 

“They won’t get into the city,” Cordelia promised him, handing the babbling Carlos off to Isabella and passing Iago’s hand to her to. “Stay here for a second, I’ll be right back.”

“I don’t want you to go away!”

“I’m just going to get my looking glass,” she promised him. “I’ll be right back.” They must be flying a standard of some kind. 

Christina put her hand on Iago’s back to keep him there with Isabella as Cordelia went into the bedroom, rooting through drawers until she found the ornate little spyglass that Isabella had given her years ago to watch the stars with. 

Bringing it back outside, Cordelia lifted it to her eye and looked out at the soldiers. The spyglass was just a glass, it wasn’t magic. But it magnified what was happening enough that she could make out some details. Horses, columns of soldiers. No siege engines, which didn’t make sense if their intention was to attack the city. 

“What are you seeing, dear?” Isabella asked her, voice tight.

“I’m not sure yet. There are lots of soldiers, four, five thousand maybe.” Cordelia wasn’t an expert on military matters. “Heavy and light infantry. Archers. Horses. I’m looking for a flag, but…” 

There, at the front of one of the columns. Not easy to make out at this distance even with the looking glass, but Cordelia saw it. A blue flag, with a red shape in the middle of it. All she needed to see were the colours. The shape would be a bird of prey with a crown in its talons. 

The sigil of house Fyrhawk. 

Heart pounding in her chest, Cordelia lowered the glass, and looked at Isabella. The look on her face must have been enough to communicate what she’d seen, because Isabella went a little ashen. 

“What?” Christina asked, looking between them. “What is it?”

“It’s the Fyrhawks,” Cordelia said. Her mouth felt dry. 

“You mean Lord Stephan is attacking us?” Christina said, taking Iago’s hand in hers.

“I don’t know yet. I have to go to the castle.”

Isabella nodded, and she leaned forward and hugged Cordelia. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“I will.” Cordelia embraced her, then hugged Christina as well. “Help your mother.”

Christina nodded, shaking a little. “It’s going to be okay, right?”

“I hope so.” Cordelia let go and hugged Iago as well. “I’ll be back in a little while. Do as your mother and sister tell you.”

“Okay,” Iago said, eyes watering. “Are you going to fight the Fyrhawks?”

“No, I’m not going to fight anyone, don’t worry about me.” Cordelia smiled at him, wiping his eyes. “I’ll be okay,” she promised.

When she was done, she took Carlos from Isabella, and hugged him for a moment too. “Momma will be back later,” she whispered, kissing his cheek before handing him back. He made grabby hands at her, and she waved. “I love you,” she said to all of them.

“We love you too,” Isabella promised, and Cordelia nodded, leaving them standing there, arms around each other, scared.

Cordelia was scared too. But she had to go to work. So she left her family there in the house, trusting them to stay safe until she got back.


	9. The Terms of Victory Can Change in a Heartbeat

“You should go to the boats,” Cordelia said, for the fiftieth time. 

The first forty-nine times hadn’t been heeded, so she was saying it again. 

“I will not,” Francesca said, for the fiftieth time. “Flee from the castle in the face of rebellion. What kind of queen does that?”

“The kind who likes her head. Stephan isn’t taking any messengers, isn’t listening to any calls for negotiation. He intends to sit on the throne and nothing short of military action is going to stop him,” Cordelia pressed. Why and where this was coming from, she still didn’t know. But his intention was clear. 

“And I’ve summoned troops from across the kingdom,” Francesca insisted. “Hawk’s Roost can withstand a siege.”

“Not if he brings out some siege engines,” Cordelia countered. There weren’t any out there now. But that didn’t mean there weren’t some just out of sight, waiting in case the siege didn’t end quickly. Stephan Fyrhawk wasn’t patient. 

“And if that happens, we’ll go to the boats,’ Francesca said. “Or I will. You should go now. Isabella and the kids are already there, right?”

Cordelia nodded. Hawk’s Roost—the castle and the city—backed onto the Shrike’s Lake in the west. There was a private pier reserved for the royal family’s use. Isabella had taken the kids already into a boat moored there, ready to cast off at any time. They weren’t happy, but the city was under siege and Cordelia wanted them safe. 

“They are,” Cordelia agreed. “And your kids should be there too, if nothing else. Send the three youngest and Maria, at least.” There was no point in trying to get her to send Felix to safety. He was ready to ride out with the city garrison and attack the Fyrhawks head on, but Francesca wouldn’t let him. 

Francesca sighed, shaking her head. “I just…what the hell happened? What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t,” Cordelia told her. They were alone in the throne room, all the advisors sent away for the moment. “This isn’t your fault, Francesca.”

“I’m the queen,” Francesca said, a mirthless smile on her lips. “Everything is my fault. I should never have let the Fyrhawks get as embedded as they did.”

“You could hardly help Hans going missing,” Cordelia told her. She’d ignored the Fyrhawks for too long as well. They’d always been ambitious and a bit uppity, but it had never occurred to her to take them seriously until recently.

Well, she was taking them seriously now that they were at the gates with swords bared, not talking. 

“No, but I could have…” Francesca sighed. “I don’t know what I could have done. Something.”

“You’re doing something now,” Cordelia told her, laying a hand on Francesca’s arm. “You’ve called in the other troops, they’ll be here soon. The city’s walled off for a siege. The people are prepared. You’ve done plenty.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” Francesca told her. “I wish he’d send demands, or make an announcement. ‘Francesca DiGorre is driving Kyaine into the ground and I’m going to put her out of your misery,’ that sort of thing. At least something we could respond to with something other than a closed gate and patience.”

“Someday you’ll have to learn how to do the patience thing, Francesca,” Cordelia chided. 

“Maybe when I’m eighty and retired,” Francesca said, shaking her head. “I’ll let Felix be king, learn to knit.”

“You’re not going to learn to knit.”

“I might.” 

“Okay, well nobody believes that, but okay, my queen.” Cordelia gave an eye roll. “I’ll look forward to the endless misshapen scarves and formless mittens.”

“You’d bloody well better, because I’m going to have worked hard on…”

A side door to the throne room opened, admitting a servant. He was wide-eyed and shaking as he approached. “M-my queen…”

“What is it?” Francesca demanded, leaning forward on the throne. She, like Cordelia, could sense it. Something was wrong. 

“The…the gates. The city guard opened them.”

The words seemed to echo, filling the throne room. “Explain,” Francesca said, voice dry. 

“I don’t know, my queen. They just…did. And now Lord Stephan is marching up Procession Boulevard and…”

“And nobody is stopping him,” Cordelia finished, and the poor servant nodded. Procession Boulevard was a chokepoint, made to be defended if the Arch Gate was breached. But it wasn’t going to be defended today. 

She looked at Francesca, who’d gone pale. “Get the kids to the boats,” the queen ordered. “Let’s go.”

“Francesca…”

She stood up, waving for the servant to come with her. “He had help. Margery or Ulrich. Maybe both. They arranged for the gates to be opened. We won’t win in a fight, not now that they’re in the city. We have to go. Now.”

Cordelia nodded, and the three of them went out through the side door. “The kids—where are they?”

“Upstairs somewhere. I told them not to leave the castle. We have to collect them and…”

The turned a corner, and were met with five armed guards. With their swords out. “My queen,” the leader of them said, and it didn’t matter what came after that, because Cordelia already knew. “Please return to the throne room for your own safety.”

“I will do no such thing,” Francesca said, and she had to have known, but she didn’t show it. “You will escort me to my children.”

“Your family is being taken to safety, my queen. You and your companion should come with us…”

“You’ve opened the castle gates, haven’t you?” Cordelia asked, shaking. 

The guard looked at her, and back to Francesca. “You two need to return to the throne room, and…”

Francesca stepped forward, arm snapping out at the wrist of the guard nearest her, grabbing his sword. She pulled him forward with a shout, stabbing the speaking guard in the throat before he could finish his sentence. “Get the kids,” she said to Isabella, as the guards shouted, fanned out. 

Cordelia dropped into a fighting stance that she’d learned as a teenager and never used since. “Francesca.”

“Get my children, and get to the boats, Cordelia,” Francesca said, “I can’t…fuck you!” One of the guards had slashed at her, and she kicked his sword away. She’d always been a better fighter than Cordelia. But it wasn’t going to matter, because if there were five of them, there were more, and the two of them couldn’t fight through an entire castle of traitors.

They’d lost a battle they hadn’t even known they were having. Cordelia didn’t know how to comprehend the magnitude of that, so instead she just fought. She took a slash to the arm before managing to disarm one soldier, and realized as another turned on her that they wanted Francesca alive, but not her. They were going easy on Francesca, trying to back her into a corner. 

To their own detriment. She killed another one, and then another, and by the time Cordelia finished off the first one, all the rest of the guards were dead. 

The servant was cowering in the corner, scared to death. “What’s your name?” Francesca asked him.

“I’m…Ray…m-my queen…”

“Am I still your queen, Ray?” 

“Y-yes…I wasn’t…I swear I didn’t know about…”

“Good. Go with Cordelia. Get my children and get them to the boats. And get out of here.”

“You have to come too, Francesca.”

Francesca smiled. “I can’t. It’s me they want. Alive, I assume. So I’ll distract them until you all get away.” She hefted the sword she’d stolen. 

“Fran…”

“I’m not leaving this castle and we both know it, Cordelia,” Francesca said, still smiling. Her eyes were watering. “Not alive. This is it for me.”

“I’m not hearing this.” Francesca was Cordelia’s best friend. She was…

“You have to. Cordelia. I need you to be my companion for just a while longer. But not until death. I need you to protect my children. Please.” Francesca was desperate. It was in her voice, in her stance, in her eyes. But she was holding it in, because she had to be the queen. 

Tears running down her face, Cordelia nodded. “I understand. I’ll save them.”

“I’m sorry to ask this. I love you, Cordelia.”

“I love you too, Francesca.” Cordelia took her queen’s hand, her friend’s hand. “I’ll get them out.”

“And your family too. No noble sacrifices for you. Your wife and children need you.”

Cordelia nodded, her world shrinking. “I’m…so happy. That we got to meet, Francesca.” She gave her friend a hug, never wanting to let go. 

“I am too. You made my life worth living, Cordelia.” Francesca pulled away, smiled, one last time. The sound of armoured footsteps approached them from another hallway. “Now go.”

“You don’t die either. They’ll want you alive. No noble sacrifices from you either.”

“Go.”

“I love you,” Cordelia whispered, and she went, waving for Ray to run with her. 

She looked over her shoulder one last time, to see that Francesca had turned, and had her sword up, waiting for her betrayers to come face her. 

Eyes filling with tears again, Cordelia turned again and ran as hard as she could. She had to save them. She had to save Francesca’s children. 

“We have to go upstairs,” she said to Ray as they ran. “To where the queen’s family is. We have to...”

“There’s someone coming.”

Cordelia heard, and she raised her own sword, coming to a stop and pulling Ray flat against the wall, listening. 

“Please, let me go,” a woman’s voice said. “This doesn’t end well for you. You can’t think…”

“Shut up.”

It was one guard, and one woman. Maria, Felix’s wife. Cordelia peered around the corner, saw them coming. He was dragging her, and there was blood on her sleeve. She waited, just until they were close, and without hesitation Cordelia leapt around the corner, stabbed the guard in the throat. Blood sprayed, hitting her. Maria screamed. 

She was a pretty young lady with a belly swollen from pregnancy, and Cordelia grabbed her arm. “Maria,” she said sternly. “There’s no time for that.”

“Cordelia? The guard. He came and he said. He said we have to go to the throne room. That Stephan Fyrhawk is coming and…”

“He is.” Her panic was making Cordelia calmer. “You get to the boat. Ray will take you. Where are the others?”

“Felix is…he went for a walk. Dahlia ran when the guards came. They…Flora and the baby. Where are they? The king, the queen?”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia told her, passing her to Ray, who looked ready to fall over. “I’ll find them. You get out of here.”

“But…”

“Think about the baby, Maria,” Cordelia snapped. She jerked her head west. “Go with Ray to the boats. Now. I’ll get the others.”

Shaking, Maria looked at her, and she nodded. She didn’t quite find her resolve, but she was on her way. “Okay. You’ll come?”

“I’ll come,” Cordelia promised. “I’ll bring the others. You go.”

“Okay. We’ll wait for you.”

“You’ll leave if there’s no other choice,” Cordelia told her. “Don’t be captured for nothing. Now go. Ray will take you through the servant’s hallways, you can avoid the guards. Get moving.”

“Right.” 

“M-my lady, I…”

“You can do it, Ray. Go.”

Terrified, he nodded, and he tugged on Maria’s arm. “This way, my lady…”

Cordelia watched them go, and stepped over the body of the guard she’d killed, moving deeper into the castle. She had to hope that Isabella wouldn’t wait for her. That she’d realize that they had to go before the guards locked down the boats. If they hadn’t already done that. 

Cordelia had never known was desperation felt like until now, not really. It was like being put on a racetrack, with blinders on and only one direction to move. And only being able to walk while horses thundered all around her. 

Her path took her up the stairs, down a long hallway, and past a long bank of windows that overlooked the castle courtyard. From here, Cordelia could see that the gates of Hawk’s Roost were wide open, ready to admit their conqueror.

And distantly, Cordelia could see them. The column of soldiers, taking their time, assured in their victory. She couldn’t make out people, but she could see colours. Blue and red, the colours of House Fyrhawk. 

Cordelia looked away. Before she could start figuring out how to make him the Late King Stephan, she needed to find the people she cared about. She had to know for sure that Isabella and her kids had gotten away, and she had to find Francesca’s children. She had to do her last duty as the queen’s companion. 

Once they were safe, though. Once they were safe. Heads were going to roll. Stephan Fyrhawk would pay for this in blood. She would see to it.


	10. Life Is Never Easy When You’re Companion to a Queen, because it’s a Duty and a Privilege that Never Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of this story--making it the first one in the series that I've finished, actually. So buckle up for a climax, everyone, and thanks for reading.

A full day and night Cordelia had managed to evade the guards. How she’d done it, she didn’t know. But she had. But she couldn’t do it forever and more importantly, she didn’t have a lot of time left. 

All of Francesca’s family were being kept in separate rooms, heavily guarded and alone. Fortunately, that only consisted of Francesca herself, Dante, Felix, Flora and the baby. In a small blessing, Dahlia had managed to completely slip all the Fyrhawks and was nowhere to be found. Since her companion Andre was gone too, Cordelia thought it was okay to assume they were safe, at least. For now. Maria had gotten safely to the boats, it seemed, and as much as Cordelia knew it must have killed Isabella, they’d managed to cast off before the pier could be locked down. 

Her family was safe, Cordelia told herself every few minutes. Isabella and the kids were safely away from the castle and headed to the other side of the lake. That was all that mattered to her. Her family was safe, and that meant that Cordelia could focus on Francesca’s.

All four of the rooms where the royals were being kept were heavily guarded and Cordelia couldn’t get to them. None of them were in the dungeon, which actually would have made it easier to rescue them. But with Fyrhawk guards patrolling the castle all the time, looking for her, and two on each door in front of the royals, there was no way to save them. 

The dungeon would have been easier to rescue them from, because it had one entrance, only a few guards and once she had the keys, she could open all the cells. Fortunately for Cordelia, though Francesca’s family wasn’t down there, the dungeon wasn’t empty. 

She made her way carefully into the bowels of the castle, taking a breath. She was tired, hungry, and sad. She looked at the iron door that led down to the dungeons, unguarded because the guards were inside in a small room with another locked door. They wouldn’t be expecting anyone. Dungeon guards expected people to try and break out, not in. 

So Cordelia butted the handle of her sword against the iron of the door, and then stood to the side, waiting. 

The door swung open, revealing a guard with a blue and red patch sewn roughly onto his shoulder. A palace guard who’d defected. Cordelia lashed out before he could even ask who was there, cutting his throat. It was more than he deserved, traitor. 

That elicited a shout from the other guards in the room, but Cordelia charged in, attacking violently. None of them had their hands on their weapons, none of them were prepared. They hadn’t been expecting an attack. These three were all Fyrhawk soldiers, and Cordelia had cut two of them down before the third had even drawn his weapon. 

She’s never been much of a fighter, but circumstances were making Cordelia adapt. It was amazing what the destruction of her entire life could do. 

The third man was bleeding on the ground and Cordelia kicked his sword away, checking through the bodies for the dungeon keys. She finally found them, dragged the bodies inside, shut the outer door and opened the inner one, taking the torch on the wall into the dungeon itself. 

She was met with jeers and shouts. “Traitors!” someone shouted. “Fyrhawk shitstain!”

Cordelia smiled. Excellent. She went up to the first cell, carefully staying out of arms’ reach until they saw her. “I agree,” she told the men inside. 

The jeers went for a second, but one of the men stopped, recognizing her. “L-Lady Cordelia?” 

“That’s right.” These people were all castle guards, DiGorre guards. Francesca’s people. Her people. “Could you perhaps quiet your friends down?”

“Don’t tell me you’re with them too…”

“Don’t be stupid,” Cordelia snapped. “Not shut them all up so I can talk without hollering.” 

The young man in front shushed his friends. “Guys, guys! It’s Lady Cordelia! It’s the queen’s companion!”

The shouts died down, and the men steady shushed those in the other cells as well, until silence managed to fall throughout the dungeon. “That’s better,” Cordelia said. She stepped forward, started trying keys in the door. “The castle’s been taken over by the Fyrhawks. We can’t beat them. They have the queen, the king, as well as Princes Felix and Donovan and Princess Flora, captive.” 

“What about…”

“Princess Dahlia escaped,” Cordelia said, as the first cell door creaked open. She moved onto the others. “I don’t know to where. And so did the Lady Maria, she’s with my family. I don’t know about anyone else, so don’t ask. What I do know is that our objective here is not to take back the castle. It’s not to kill Stephan Fyrhawk. Not yet!” she shouted, when the yelling picked up again. “Not yet. Our only objective right now is rescuing the queen and her family, and getting out of the castle so we can mount a proper resistance. If Baby Lord Fyrhawk wants a to play king, then we need to show him that it’s not a fun game to lose. We’ll rescue the royal family, we’ll escape, we’ll mount a resistance, and we’ll win the castle back, but we can’t do all of that right now, so I need you all to do as I say and help me rescue the DiGorres, do you hear me?”

That got her a cheer, and Cordelia sighed in relief as the third cell door swung open. “Good,” she said. “Now, who among you is in charge?”

One of the men was shuffled to the front. “I suppose I am, ma’am. Sergeant Victor Gest.” He looked tired, had a cut above his eye that was already inflamed and stood like a man who knew he had only a short time to live. 

Cordelia nodded. “Good. Well you’re captain now, not that I can give you the pay bump. First we need to…”

“Excuse me,” another voice said, and a man was shouldering his way to the front of the group. “Lady Cordelia.”

Cordelia frowned at him a moment, then felt surprise wash through her. “Lord Gerhard. What the hell are you doing down here?” Lords of major houses didn’t get stuck in the dungeon with common guards. 

“Hiding,” Gerhard DiSheere said, smiling a little. The prisoners were moving away from him, obviously having not recognized him before. “Fyrhawk soldiers aren’t very smart, as it turns out. And had they caught me, it would be the noose, I suspect. I never wavered in my support of the queen, and I never will.”

Cordelia watched him, nodded. She had to choose to trust him. “I trust you heard my inspiring speech just now?”

“I did, and I agree,” Gerhard said. “I bow to your authority in this.” 

Cordelia nodded. She didn’t technically have any authority, but that didn’t matter. “The queen’s family is all being kept in separate, guarded rooms. I can’t get to them myself. Where will your weapons have been taken?” she asked Captain Gest. 

“The armoury, I think,” Gest said, looking around. 

“Very well.” Cordelia sighed. “There are three swords lying on the floor in the guards’ room, and a few more on rack in there. Give them to your best fighters until you can acquire more. Our goal is to find the royal family and escape the castle with them,” she said again. 

“Understood, ma’am.” Gest saluted, and so did the rest of the soldiers, and Lord Gerhard nodded grimly. 

Taking a breath and feeling emboldened, Cordelia turned and strode out of the dungeons, Lord Gerhard beside her and the guards falling into place behind them. It was hard to tell in the dim light how many there were, but she estimated about a hundred. 

Could a hundred soldiers free a queen and her family? They were going to have to. Cordelia led them out, pausing in the guard house so Gest, Gerhard and about a dozen of the others could arm themselves, and they proceeded into the hallway. “They’re being kept upstairs,” Cordelia told them, setting pace in that direction. 

“A suggestion, Lady Cordelia,” Gerhard said, holding out a hand. “Let’s go to the armoury first and arm the men. We’d be better positioned to free the queen and her family if we have more than a dozen fighters.”

Cordelia hesitated, but of course he was right. There was no point charging in half-armed. Stephan Fyrhawk hadn’t hurt the family yet, he wasn’t going to hurt them in the next fifteen minutes. “Good plan, Lord Gerhard. Let’s go.” 

So instead of going up they went west, to the large armour that was at the back of the main floor of the castle. On the way there they encountered three patrols of Fyrhawk guards, and left no survivors. Two of theirs died along the way as well, but Cordelia tried not to focus on that. They were at war. She couldn’t save everyone. 

The armoury was guarded by five soldiers, but by this time they had twenty, and it was opened in no time. Cordelia had never had a stomach for violence or killing, but it was remarkable how quickly she was getting used to it. Remarkable and alarming. 

Once the soldiers were armed, Cordelia looked around. “Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll start with the children. Francesca will be furious if they’re still in captivity when we free her.” 

So she led them up to the third level. “They’re going to know we’re on the move soon enough,” Lord Gerhard said as they climbed some stairs. “If they don’t already. Someone will see the bodies. Someone will check the dungeon. Not all our fights are going to be with half a dozen swords or less.” 

“That’s fine,” Cordelia told him. “As long as we get to the DiGorres before that happens, I don’t care.” 

“Understood,” Gerhard said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “You realize there’s a very good chance we’re all going to die.”

Cordelia nodded. And he nodded back, and they kept moving, and that was that. 

Alarm bells were ringing distantly by the time they got to the guest quarters. They’d been detected, as they’d known they would be. “They’re just around this corner,” Cordelia said. “The guard may have increased, but last time I was here there were two on each door.” 

“Ma’am,” Captain Gest said, peering around the corner. 

Cordelia joined him, peering as well. 

The doors were unguarded. 

“Oh, no,” Cordelia whispered, heading out, stomach falling. “No, they’ve moved them. They knew we were coming. _Shit_.” 

This close. They’d been this close. 

“They won’t have taken them far,” Gerhard told her. “We’ll find them.”

Cordelia took calming breaths. She had to be calm. She had to be. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s…wait.” She heard something, clattering in one of the rooms. “In there.”

She, Gerhard, Gest and a few soldiers ran into the room, weapons out, and scared the living hell out of some poor maid who was cleaning up. Some of Donovan’s toys were scattered around. “Calm down,” Cordelia ordered, as the woman screamed. “Tell us where the Fyrhawks have taken the royal family.” 

“Th-the throne room, my lady,” the maid said, curtseying over and over. “They were all taken to the throne room. I…I swear I…I’m just here to clean up…”

Cordelia sighed, turned away. “I believe you. Do you know why they’re being taken there?” That was a strange place to take the DiGorres to prevent them from being freed. 

“I…heard that King Stephan is going to be coronated, my lady. And that Queen Francesca is going to abdicate.” 

Like hell that was going to happen. Cordelia took another breath. “Thank you,” she said, already out of the room. “We can’t charge the throne room with a hundred people, not through the front. But the side entrances won’t be as heavily guarded, they never are.” 

And Cordelia didn’t think that Stephan Fyrhawk was smart enough for that, not by half. 

“Lead the way, then,” Gerhard told her, and Cordelia did just that, heart pounding. She had a terrible feeling about this. 

The closest entrance to the throne room from here was also the most used, but Cordelia wasn’t wasting any more time. She led them right there, and wisely, the three people on the door simply dropped their blades and surrendered when they saw the size of Cordelia’s force. 

She had one of them open the door just a crack, just so she could hear what was happening before they charged in. 

“And in order to ensure a peaceful transition,” Stephan Fyrhawk’s voice drifted out, pitched deeper than Cordelia usually heard it, “The former queen is here to graciously abdicate and retire to the countryside, where she and her family will live quietly and in safety.” 

Cordelia paused, holding up a hand. Was he…was Stephan Fyrhawk that stupid? He couldn’t be. There was no way he was going to let Francesca go. That would be insane. It would be asking for the civil war that he was already going to have on his hands. 

“Nobody in this room believes that, Stephan,” Francesca said, voice strong. “You think bringing my family here will cow me? You plan to kill us all—just admit it and be done with it.” Voices picked up in the throne room; it sounded like Stephan had gathered the nobility. “I am the queen of Kyaine, and no amount of swords will keep you propped up on my throne for long.” 

“It only takes one to kill you,” Stephan snapped. “And when I marry your daughter, nobody will challenge my claim to the…”

“Go,” Cordelia ordered, and she and her people ran in, pushing people aside, causing a panic as nobles stampeded to get out of the way, as soldiers moved to protect the dais, as steel rang. On the dais stood Stephan Fyrhawk, wearing Francesca’s crown, Neville behind him. Francesca, Dante, Felix, Flora and Donovan in his nurse’s arms were up there with him, not individually guarded. He’d been counting on the guards in the room to keep anything from happening. 

And there were a lot of them, nearly matching Cordelia’s amassed force. “Lord Stephan,” Cordelia called, looking at him. He looked scared. So did Francesca, but only Cordelia could likely see that. “This is the only opportunity you’ll be given to stop this foolishness.” He had gathered all the nobles, she saw. Margery DiCosst and Ulrich Elderbyne were near the front with their families, and Gerhard DiSheere’s two sons were there as well, looking stricken at seeing their father. “Step away from the dais and surrender and you and your people will be treated fairly.”

Which was to say that they’d be beheaded cleanly rather than hung. 

Stephan Fyrhawk shook his head, looking around at the standoff. “I have more guards outside the door, and all over this castle. You won’t survive this assault.”

“Neither will you, Stephan. And that’s what matters,” Cordelia said. At least, that was what mattered to him. Stephan was a coward at heart, she could see it. Now that he was up there, he already knew he didn’t want it. What madness had possessed him to make him think he could be king?

 

For just a moment, a long, heart-wrenching moment, it looked like he’d heard her, like he would listen. But then Stephan shook his head again, raising his hand. “Kill them,” he said, voice cracking. 

A cry went up as his soldiers advanced, but that wasn’t what Cordelia was watching. As soon as Stephan spoke, Felix moved. He leapt from the dais, pulling a knife from the belt of the nearest guard, and leapt back, charging at Stephan. Stephan didn’t have time to react, and Neville pulled him back, Felix’s knife ending up buried in his shoulder. Dante was shouting. Francesca raced forward. Flora was crying, and so was Donovan. 

Neville slid in one motion, pulling his own knife and slashing Felix’s neck open with it, pushing him away from Stephan. “No!” Cordelia heard Francesca yell over the noise, catching her son as he fell. Cordelia was five steps from the dais, she couldn’t get there. She couldn’t get there before Neville’s knife came down and stabbed Francesca DiGorre in the heart, removed immediately as he turned to slash the king’s throat. 

The world fell away as Cordelia pushed past people on both sides to get to the dais. Neville was pulling Stephan away from the bodies. Francesca was still holding Felix as blood stained the front of her dress. Flora was being pulled away by the guards, out of reach. 

Cordelia reached the dais, eyes on Francesca, and nothing else. Francesca saw her, eyes wide, sight fading, and she smiled. And looked off to the side for a moment, before returning her gaze to Cordelia. 

Donovan’s maid was in the corner, clutching the howling baby for dear life, ignored for now. 

Cordelia wanted nothing more than to go her to companion, to her best friend, to be there for Francesca as she died. To die with her. To die for her. To kill every last Fyrhawk in the country for what they’d done here.

But she’d promised Francesca. She’d promised to protect her children. 

Heart shattered, Cordelia ran, past Francesca and Felix, past Dante, towards the maid. And she pulled the woman, who resisted, not wanting to go. So Cordelia hit her, snatched the baby out of her arms, and made for the door. 

She shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have looked over her shoulder. But Cordelia did. Her people were outnumbered and dying. Gest was calling a retreat. Gerhard DiSheere had been stabbed, and his boys had broken through the fighting and were kneeling beside him. 

And Cordelia saw Francesca, looking over at her one last time, smiling. She seemed to nod, and then the queen of Kyaine fell forward, body landing atop her son’s. 

The baby in her arms was bawling. Cordelia couldn’t stay. She had to go, had to get him to safety. She had to find her family, and go somewhere safe. 

She ran, out of the throne room, out of the castle. She didn’t stop running, she couldn’t. Not until the baby was safe, not until she was away. She didn’t know where she was running to but she ran, as hard as she could, through tears and pain and loss and destruction and the end of her world, she ran. 

But Cordelia wasn’t going to run forever. She was going to run for now, until she was safe, until the baby was safe, until she found her family again. She would run. But then, but then Cordelia would stop running. She would stop running someday, and she would turn around, and her fury would wash over Hawk’s Roost until there was nothing left. 

Stephan and Neville had better be afraid if they knew what was good for them. Because when Cordelia stopped running, they were going to repay every drop of blood they’d spilled.

Cordelia was the queen's companion. And she would have justice.


End file.
